And then the wall of bees

One thing I've learned to appreciate about my mom is that she often responds to bad news the same way I do, with incredulity and righteous indignation: "Your dad had lung cancer? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!" And she's right, it is. It's hard to imagine a healthier person than my dad, or a more no-nonsense example of dealing with illness. Upon hearing that further monitoring and surgery might be necessary after the removal of the tumor, in true dad fashion he pronounced "Ain't nobody got time for that -- take it all out!" Thus he is now the proud owner of a solitary lung.

That should have been the end of it right there. But like love, that shit spreads around. Now his thyroid is looking sketchy and might come out as well. The whole thing is scary as hell, and yet I find myself strangely under-reacting in a way that probably makes me look harsh and uncaring to anyone watching. I'm not really, but I cannot conceive of a universe where my dad cannot conquer anything and everything in his path, so naturally I assume that this will all turn out okay. I'm not particularly optimistic usually, but in this case, I don't even have to try. It's my dad. He's Superman.

Right?

I've been house-sitting and minding two cats for the past week, which really means alternating periods of writing productivity with periods of watching "Mrs. Doubtfire" and crying into a pint of Ben and Jerry's. The events of this semester have left me so drained and emotional that I'm liable to burst into tears at any moment (and do), and the solitude of this week has not helped much. I should've gotten a lot done, but instead I've just had too much time to think, too much time to play it all over in my head, too much time to wonder where it's going. I briefly consoled myself with the thought that the loneliness and stress will soon be past, but then I took a good hard look at myself eating dinner alone while shooing a cat off my book and realized that this is going to be the rest of my life. Work, silence, depression, and so much time left to go.